Thoughts on place, code, and spatial data science.
15 Apr 2026
14 Apr 2026
Exploring place, systems, and human-computer interaction.
A Royal Society-funded STEM partnership project where T Level Data Analytics students at Halesowen College design, build, and deploy air quality sensors around the college estate — turning raw environmental data into community insights.
A comprehensive, grounded-theory framework for curating personalised leisure walking experiences, creating a bridge between subjective human narratives and computational routing systems.
Modules, lectures, and educational resources
Lecture Materials
Access slides, quizzes, and interactive content.
Outreach Games
Interactive CS concepts for students.
Bridging academic research with practical industry applications in place-based walking systems
The Leisure Walking Systems Working Group (LWSWG) impact project represents a significant milestone in bridging academic research with practical industry applications in the domain of place-based walking systems.
Presented at W2GIS 2025 in Mexico City
Diabetes remains one of the most pressing global health challenges of the 21st century. In Mexico, the burden of the disease is deeply shaped by social inequalities, with hospitalisations and deaths reflecting broader patterns of deprivation and exclusion. Our recent work, presented by Carlos Hernández Nava at W2GIS 2025, brings a spatio-temporal lens to this urgent problem.
Deliberately vulnerable, modular, and instructor-friendly labs for cyber security education and engagement
OS³ (Open Source Security Studio) is a free, open-source platform for teaching cyber security through safe, practical labs. Built in Python/Flask for CMU540 at Birmingham Newman University and STEM outreach, it offers paired insecure vs. secure demos of common vulnerabilities and network security simulations.
Rethinking how we describe the world through lived experience and coordinates
Digital maps are dominated by the spatial: coordinates, polygons, and networks. Yet when we talk about the world around us, we rarely think in such precise terms. We think in places. This distinction between the platial and the spatial is more than semantics—it changes how we represent, analyse, and live with geography.
A global research project redefining place through lived experience rather than coordinates
Traditional maps often delineate our world with rigid lines and boundaries, yet these divisions seldom reflect the nuanced ways individuals experience and interact with their environments. The Platial Atlas project seeks to bridge this gap.
A practical tutorial for understanding and implementing Uber's H3 hexagonal grid system
Why are Uber, Foursquare, and every major location intelligence company switching to hexagonal grids? This tutorial will teach you H3 fundamentals with interactive examples you can run in your browser.
A manifesto for place-aware software development and spatial computing
Most navigation apps don't know where you really want to go. This opening post explores why we need code that understands the difference between space and place, and introduces the philosophy behind jwilliams.science.
An overview of my new academic portfolio website architecture, explaining the design considerations and organisation.
Over the past couple of months I have been re-designing and building a new online portfolio for my work. This article will explore my design choices and experience in developing jwilliams.science.
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